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How I got into the "Satellite Scene" - please contribute your own experiences!
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<blockquote data-quote="Captain Jack" data-source="post: 904937" data-attributes="member: 243342"><p>Interesting thread! I started off with terrestrial TV in Russia. Back in '91, we only had two channels in VHF band (now known as Channel One and Russia 1 on satellite) and with the collapse of the curtain, a number of pirate channels appeared in UHF. Three problems: 1) far from all TVs had a UHF tuner but could relatively easy be upgraded by either fitting it with the extra tuner or buying a frequency extender (shifted UHF frequencies down into VHF band). Our portable black and white had a UHF tuner, while the big colour one did not. So initially, we used two TVs to watch different channels! The now popular NTV Russia channel was one of the first independents to broadcast in UHF. Problem 2) as most were pirate stations (I watched Terminator 2 on one of those channels a few weeks after it was released in the cinemas), the transmission power was low. My mum's place was in a relatively open area and could easily get most channels from the little TV's aerial but my grandparents' place was more obstructed with surroundinh buildings and was a much more difficult job to get a decent signal. 3) pirate TV stations essentially broadcasted VHS playback, which was PAL. The standard in Russia is SECAM. So on an old colour TV, most programming was in black and white! Again, these could be upgraded (usually) to receive PAL transmissions in colour... Fun times. I spent a lot of time with those relatively exotic channels because they weren't easy to get. </p><p></p><p>Having moved to the UK in '93, we got Sky analogue. Fairly soon, I became homesick and tried to find ways to receive home TV. Back then, the only thing available was something in C band or NTV Plus from 36e, which was as difficult to get as it is now. For a while, it was a pipe dream, so I spent that time turning the 60cm Sky dish manually to 13e and beyond. This was feeding the Amstrad SRD510 receiver. Not bad, those things. Then in '95, we got our very first Philips FilmNet D2MAC decoder to watch the wonderful (at the time) Scandinavian TV channels. I still have the late night offerings on VHS tapes somewhere... After FilmNet left 19.2e, we cancelled the ever increasing Sky sub and moved to 1W. Pirate cards were easily available and we had a good number of channels there. By that time, we bought an inferior Amstrad 650 D/D2MAC receiver as the Philips one was giving us trouble (black band on one side of the picture - you could fix it by entering a service menu but we didn't have a remote to do this). </p><p></p><p>After that, it was an all digital affair. I bought a used Sky Digital receiver in 2000 to watch FTA stuff from Astra 1 (and, crucially, the newly launched Channel One Russia International channel on Sirius 2) shortly followed by an awful Canal+ Seca receiver from Spain with a card that opened pretty much everything. A few months later, a bought a Humax F1(?) receiver, which I loved. By then I upgraded to a dual feed arrangement for Astra and Hot Bird...followed by the excellent Nokia 9600 receiver with a SCSI interface to 'stream' video directly to my PC. This was now 2002-3, so I moved to a motorised 1m dish, firstly by the Irte dual axis motor and then by a proper DiSEqC Stab motor. Been in this ever since....and still chasing those elusive Russian channels. Though, these days it's more for the 'yay, I can get them' factor rather than actually watching them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Captain Jack, post: 904937, member: 243342"] Interesting thread! I started off with terrestrial TV in Russia. Back in '91, we only had two channels in VHF band (now known as Channel One and Russia 1 on satellite) and with the collapse of the curtain, a number of pirate channels appeared in UHF. Three problems: 1) far from all TVs had a UHF tuner but could relatively easy be upgraded by either fitting it with the extra tuner or buying a frequency extender (shifted UHF frequencies down into VHF band). Our portable black and white had a UHF tuner, while the big colour one did not. So initially, we used two TVs to watch different channels! The now popular NTV Russia channel was one of the first independents to broadcast in UHF. Problem 2) as most were pirate stations (I watched Terminator 2 on one of those channels a few weeks after it was released in the cinemas), the transmission power was low. My mum's place was in a relatively open area and could easily get most channels from the little TV's aerial but my grandparents' place was more obstructed with surroundinh buildings and was a much more difficult job to get a decent signal. 3) pirate TV stations essentially broadcasted VHS playback, which was PAL. The standard in Russia is SECAM. So on an old colour TV, most programming was in black and white! Again, these could be upgraded (usually) to receive PAL transmissions in colour... Fun times. I spent a lot of time with those relatively exotic channels because they weren't easy to get. Having moved to the UK in '93, we got Sky analogue. Fairly soon, I became homesick and tried to find ways to receive home TV. Back then, the only thing available was something in C band or NTV Plus from 36e, which was as difficult to get as it is now. For a while, it was a pipe dream, so I spent that time turning the 60cm Sky dish manually to 13e and beyond. This was feeding the Amstrad SRD510 receiver. Not bad, those things. Then in '95, we got our very first Philips FilmNet D2MAC decoder to watch the wonderful (at the time) Scandinavian TV channels. I still have the late night offerings on VHS tapes somewhere... After FilmNet left 19.2e, we cancelled the ever increasing Sky sub and moved to 1W. Pirate cards were easily available and we had a good number of channels there. By that time, we bought an inferior Amstrad 650 D/D2MAC receiver as the Philips one was giving us trouble (black band on one side of the picture - you could fix it by entering a service menu but we didn't have a remote to do this). After that, it was an all digital affair. I bought a used Sky Digital receiver in 2000 to watch FTA stuff from Astra 1 (and, crucially, the newly launched Channel One Russia International channel on Sirius 2) shortly followed by an awful Canal+ Seca receiver from Spain with a card that opened pretty much everything. A few months later, a bought a Humax F1(?) receiver, which I loved. By then I upgraded to a dual feed arrangement for Astra and Hot Bird...followed by the excellent Nokia 9600 receiver with a SCSI interface to 'stream' video directly to my PC. This was now 2002-3, so I moved to a motorised 1m dish, firstly by the Irte dual axis motor and then by a proper DiSEqC Stab motor. Been in this ever since....and still chasing those elusive Russian channels. Though, these days it's more for the 'yay, I can get them' factor rather than actually watching them. [/QUOTE]
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